Barnaby Part 20

"Wasn't the last dance ours?" he said. "I'm awfully sorry:--but you are getting on all right, aren't you? Plenty of subst.i.tutes? I've been watching them buzzing round you."

She smiled at him bravely. How like life this dancing was ... meeting and parting, and strange companions.... For the first and last time she was linking arms with Julia.

Later on she saw Rackham on his way to her. It was almost the first time that evening that she was unsurrounded. She had felt him watching her; awaiting his time to swoop. Barnaby had not been visible during the last two dances, and this, alas! was one that was glorified with a star.

"Yes," said Rackham, before she could speak, "I know;--you are dancing it with your husband."

There was no anger in his voice; only a kind of sardonic amus.e.m.e.nt, as if he could afford to forgive her for that rebuff. She looked vainly for Barnaby.

"As a matter of fact," said Rackham coolly, "he has delegated his privilege to me."

"I am tired," she said. It was true; very tired and forsaken.

"Then we'll sit it out," said Rackham, no whit abashed. He carried his point over her weariness; she wondered dully why she had been afraid of him, and she was too sad to struggle. She let him take her up the stairs into the far corner of the gallery, now deserted, and sat with her arms on the rail, gazing absently on the flitting brightness that mocked her wistful mood below.

All at once she started. Her wandering thoughts were fixed.

"What are you saying to me?" she cried.

Rackham was very near her, his head bent, his voice low and pa.s.sionate in her ears.

"What I have always wanted to say to you," he said. "You guessed it, didn't you? You were a little afraid of me;--just a little. You've been trying to put it off.... But don't you remember the first time we met--and that afternoon down by the spinney, when I told you I was your friend?"

She began to shiver. His hand, shutting the idle fan, was imprisoning hers as it clenched itself on her knee.

"I was not listening to you!" she cried desperately. "I was not thinking of you. How dare you?"

"What were you thinking of then?" said Rackham. "Not of Barnaby, who has gone back to his first love and forgotten that you exist."

"He sent you to me," she said piteously.

"Oh, that was a lie," said Rackham. "He didn't even trouble as much as that."

She had sprung to her feet and her face was as white as ashes. For how long had this man been telling her that he loved her? She had been deaf to him, had caught his words without understanding their import, murmuring "Yes" to him, while her eyes and her heart were searching for one figure to pa.s.s in the dizzy scene below.

"You are mad," she said.

"Mad if you like," said Rackham. "After all, I am Barnaby's cousin, and it's probably in our blood. Look at him, still crazed over a woman who jilted him years ago!"

She flung up her head, compelled by a piteous instinct to play her part.

"And I am Barnaby's wife," she said bravely.

He looked at her fixedly, making no motion to let her pa.s.s him.

"Are you?" he said.

The band seemed to burst into clamour and die away; but they were all dancing; there must be music still, although she could not hear anything but these two syllables. She kept her eyes steady. Perhaps he did not grasp the significance of his words.

"You have insulted me enough," she said to him slowly.

A wild eagerness lighted his face.

"I'm not insulting you," he said. "I leave that to him.... I'm asking you to be my wife, Susan. Let him go. Let him release himself. Leave him to the woman from whom you can't keep him.--Come away with me,--and marry me!"

"I--cannot," she said.

He had to fall back then and let her go. But he followed her down the stairs. The light in his eyes flickered out, leaving a sullen admiration.

"Well," he said, "I warn you. I've a bit of a score to settle with Barnaby."

She turned on him. She had reached the bottom; her foot was on the crimson carpet that lay under the gallery; a little way off a handful of men were talking with their backs turned, hilarious at the climax of a sporting tale. She looked at the dark face above her; her lips were white now, her eyes were blazing. "Are you threatening--him?" she cried, and the devil in Rackham smiled.

She took a few rash steps, hardly knowing in what direction.

"You needn't look for him here," said Rackham bitterly. "Don't let his friends think you jealous."

From where she stood she could see in at the open doorway of one of the sitting-out rooms, a dim, mysterious haunt of palms, the chairs drawn back in the shadow. Was not that Barnaby and a woman in a glittering green dress, listening with her face uplifted--?

Ah, what right had she to run to him?--One of the men standing about under the gallery had looked round. She heard him mutter it was a shame. What was a shame? Not anything that could be spoken or done to her.... She threw up her head, walking straight on as if she were walking in her sleep. The d.u.c.h.ess and Kitty Drake were together half-way up the room; they moved down to meet her, exchanging looks.

"My dear," said the d.u.c.h.ess solemnly, "you look fatigued."

"I am tired," she said.

"I thought so. f.a.gged out. You have danced too much. Major Willes--"

She called a man to her side and sent him on an immediate errand. When he was gone she returned to Susan.

"I've sent somebody to fetch your husband," she said. "He ought to take more care of you. I shall scold him."

"Oh, don't!" she cried faintly, but her champions took no notice; and soon Barnaby himself came swinging along the room.

"Barnaby," said the d.u.c.h.ess, "you ought to be ashamed of yourself.

Take your wife up to supper."

The first rush was over upstairs in the supper-room, and Barnaby found a corner. She sat with him at a little round table behind a tall plant that shut off the world with its wide green fronds, some sheltering exotic. And he was pouring out champagne, a drink she hated. She put her hand over the top of the gla.s.s, and he caught it and lifted it off, holding it in his while he poured on unchecked.

"It's not good stuff,--but it's good for you. Drink!" he said.

He seemed to be laughing at her from an immeasurable distance; his prescription had made her dizzy.

"It will go off in a minute; you wanted it badly," he was saying, in a voice that sounded far away and unlike his own.

"It has gone to my head," she said, appealing to him. "I'm afraid I shall say something silly. Don't let me. Don't let me talk....'"

"Why not? There is n.o.body listening," he was saying, encouraging her; amused.

And Susan heard her own voice. Her head was spinning; she was talking against her will.